Text Box Hints
By Richard Rost
2 years ago
Text Box Hint Instructions Until User Enters Value
In this Microsoft Access tutorial, I will show you how to display hint instructions in text boxes until the user enters a value using the format property and conditional formatting. This expert-level video also demonstrates techniques to enhance user experience without any VBA programming.
David from Bellevue, Washington (a Gold Member) asks: I would like to show the field description in the textbox when there is no data in the textbox; like a shadow until data is inserted.
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In the extended cut, we will learn how to create and use floating labels that provide instructions or hints above text fields as the user tabs through them. This feature will require some VBA code, and I'll show you exactly how to implement it.
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Keywords
TechHelp Access, text box hints, conditional formatting, Microsoft Access forms, text box placeholders, field descriptions, user instructions, null values, text box default text, non-VBA solutions, control tip text, conditional field colors, interactive database design, advanced Access tips, Access customization tips, dynamic text box labels
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Intro In this video, I will show you how to display helpful hint text in your Microsoft Access text boxes using the format property, so users see instructions until they enter data. We'll talk about how to apply conditional formatting to make these hints appear in gray, and I'll demonstrate how to highlight fields when they're in focus. Along the way, I'll discuss the proper syntax for the format property and address the tricks needed to apply conditional formatting for empty or null values, all without using any VBA code.Transcript Today I'm going to show you how to display hints or little instructions in your text boxes until the user enters a value. For example, here we can see we got Paragon as a first name. Last name isn't typed in yet, so it says in little gray letters, enter last name.
Any of these fields that are null or empty, we'll put a little hint in them to help the user and make your database easier to use. And best of all, this is an expert level video, so we can do this without any VBA programming whatsoever. It's a little bit beyond the basics. I put expert kind of after basics but before developer, so there's a couple of things you got to learn first.
We'll go over the prerequisites in a minute, but first, let's take a look at the question.
This question was posted in the forums by David from Bellevue, Washington, one of my gold members. David says, I'd like to show the field description in the text box when there is no data in the text box, like a shadow until the data is inserted.
And of course, right away, my moderators posted some awesome ideas. Adam posted some good ideas. Alex posted the easiest solution, which is using the format property, which we're going to work with in just a minute. I'm going to add a little twist to it, though. Kevin Yip added some ideas. So let's take a look at what Alex said.
He said you could use the format property for text values, it'll be like this. You put a little at symbol that says put normal characters here if there's a value. The semicolon and then something after the semicolon is the value that gets placed in the box if the value is null or empty. So we can use that to show hints.
Now I'm calling them hints because there's also something called control tip text. I did a whole separate video on control tip text, but this involves, like right here, you can see it, this involves the user hovering their mouse over a control.
Okay, so that doesn't help you if you want to just see in all the text boxes what the instructions for those text boxes are, like we're going to do today with these. This involves a little more work, but I think you'll be happy with the results.
Alright, so what are those prerequisites you're talking about? Well, first you should be familiar with the format property and how it works. If not, go watch this video. Now, so that we can make the colors different, we can make these gray, we're going to use conditional formatting.
Go watch this video first and then go watch this video because there's a special way you have to handle conditional formatting for null values. It's not easy, but this video explains how to do it. Now I'm going to show you how to do it in just a minute. These are all free videos. They're on my YouTube channel. They're on my website. I'll put links down below in the description. Go watch these first and then come on back.
Alright, so here I am in my TechHelp free template. This is a free database you can grab off my website if you want to. Now in here, we've got a customer form and just to keep things simple so I'm not going to do a million fields because it does involve some manual work here. What we're going to do is we're just going to simplify this form for now just for the purposes of class. I'm going to delete a bunch of stuff. Let's get rid of all the fields except for this stuff.
Alright, I don't feel like typing a million things.
OK, so we've got four fields here. We're going to ignore the ID. Four fields. I want to put instructions in here. We're going to use the format properties. We're going to open this guy up, double click, bring up the properties over here. And right here on the Format tab, the first one is Format. This is where you're going to put your format. Duh. And it's going to be the at sign, semicolon, and then whatever you want the instructions to be inside of quotes, like enter the first name. Real simple. Here I'll zoom in so you can see it to the people in the back row.
Alright. It's an at symbol, semicolon, and then in quotes enter the first name. Really simple. I'm going to copy this to my clipboard. Let's go to the next one. Paste it and it's going to simply be last name. Alright. Next one. Paste it and be careful because you can't double click here. It'll erase it if you double click. I don't know, it's one of my pet peeves, but you got to do that and then you just got to select this and then enter the email address or whatever prompt you want.
Obviously, for fields like these, these are simple, but I know some of you guys, me especially, you got databases where a field might not be common sense, like what goes in here. You can put your instructions this way. And then enter the phone number.
Alright, so we got our instructions in place. Now, let's save it, close it, open it, and there we go. Now, if I go to a new record, there's all my instructions. And if I go to any other fields, like you can see here, this guy doesn't have a phone number. If I delete this book, the instructions come up.
And that's great. And that was what Alex suggested, and I love this tip. But I'm going to take it one step further. I'm going to add further or farther? Let's see. In-depth, further. Farther is distance. I'm going to take it one step further. And I'm going to say, well, if it's just the instructions and not actual data, let's make it gray. Let's use conditional formatting.
OK, now, if you watch the other videos, you know conditional formatting has to be handled a separate way. You can't just say, you know, if it equals something. In fact, Sammy, I'd add that to the list of possible upgrades because you can't just select these. Go to conditional formatting and it'd be nice if you could just say if the field value is and then null was one of these options. Null or empty, but it's not.
Alright, so we got to use a trick. We have to use the is null version. So we're going to go expression is and then over here we're going to say is null open parentheses open square bracket and I'm just going to put xxxxx in there that's where the field name is going to go close bracket close parentheses.
OK because again another one of my pet peeves is if you don't put this in brackets inside of parentheses, then Conditional Format is going to try and switch that to quotes. I hate that. It's a pet peeve of mine. It's been driving me nuts for years. Microsoft needs to fix that. If we don't have spaces in our field names, there's no need for those brackets.
Let's set the color over here. I'm going to go about midway here in the gray, like gray three. Hit OK. Alright, now let's save it. Now we just have to go through and edit each field and put its field name in there. I just did it so it copies the formula and the color for all of them. Now you just got to open each one of them and then come in here and then change this to first name.
I know there's no other simpler way to do this. You just got to do it. That's why I only wanted to do four fields. I don't feel like sitting here and doing all these fields. But you'll do this for each one of the fields on your form. There's last name. We'll do email. Double click. Email. Hit OK. Open this one up. Conditional formatting. Double click. Phone. And I'm done with my four fields. You do whatever fields you want. Save it. Close it. Open it.
Let's go to the end. See, these are null so you're getting your null format and your null conditional formatting for the color. And I think that looks sexy. And then nice, so now they go to the new form, type in the first name, Rick.
Alright now, yeah it's going to stay gray until they're done typing. There's really not much you can do about that. Except maybe we could try adding a field has focus conditional formatting as well. Let's go into Design View again. Let's try this. I haven't tried it yet. Let's try it together.
Now, at this point, you can't select all of them and add another conditional formatting because it will replace what's in there. I hate that. It's another one of my pet peeves. But you have to do them individually. We can do them individually. Okay. So we'll do first name, conditional formatting. We're going to add a rule. And we're going to say field has focus. And then let's set the color to, let's go yellow and black, like that. OK. And I'm going to move this one up so it goes first. If the field has focus, you'll get this. OK. Hit OK.
Let's test it with just that one. Close it down, open her up. Alright, field is focused there. Tab. Okay, let's go to a new one. Tab, tab, tab. Okay, I'm liking this. I'm liking this. This is what I want.
Okay, so let's go back in here, design view. Let's apply that to all of them. Now we can't, again, we can't format paint it because it will overwrite the other ones. So I'll do one more on camera. You can watch it.
Alright, so it's last name, format, conditional formatting, new rule, field has focus. We're going to go yellow and then black. Maybe make it a more subdued yellow. You could do this first in the one and then format paint it across all of them. And of course, move this up to the top. I'll do the other two off camera. Save it, close it, open it.
Looks good. Looks good. Alright, let's go to the last one. Hmm. OK. Put in here Richard again. Tab, Ross, tab, amacron at gmail.com. I think I got it. Oh, I don't. And then, OK. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I knew I had a relationship set up so that this is unique. We'll make it amacron too.
There we go. That's just my indexing kicking in, no duplicates. Alright, so there we go. That's working beautifully. If the value's null, you get that. If it's not, you get the regular look. And if it's got focus, you get the yellow there. That's pretty cool.
Thank Alex for the tip, and I just added the conditional formatting to make it look better. Now another thing that I like to do that I've done before, I like to do little floating hints. They look like control-tip text, but it's like a little floating label. You ready? It looks like this. Watch. Look at that. It says, enter first name. It pops up a label above the field you're on. See? And if I tab, enter last name, tab, enter email address, tab, what's your digits, right, where you live, okay, and that's a little floating label. This does involve some VBA code, and I will cover this in the extended cut for the members. Silver members and up get access to all of my extended cut videos. Gold members can download the databases I build in the TechHelp videos, and they get my code vault and all kinds of cool stuff.
So there you go. But thanks to Alex for the tip and everybody else for the suggestions in the forums. That's going to be your TechHelp video for today. I hope you learned something. Live long and prosper, my friends. I'll see you next time.
TOPICS:
Displaying hints in text boxes
Using Format property for text values
Conditional formatting for null values
Setting color using conditional formatting
Handling conditional formatting with "is null"
Applying conditional formatting based on field focus
Working with a free database template
Implementing hints with the Format property
Using at symbol and semicolon in Format property
Creating gray hints with conditional formatting
Adding hints with custom text for text boxes
Problems with conditional formatting overwriting
Setting conditional formatting for multiple fields manually
Ensuring hints display correctly on new records
Floating label hints with VBA code (extended cut content)
COMMERCIAL:
In today's video from Access Learning Zone, I'm showing you how to display helpful hints in your text boxes until the user enters data. We'll make your database user-friendly without any VBA programming. We'll apply the format property to show instructions and then use conditional formatting to make these hints appear in gray. I'll guide you step-by-step through setting it up, even adding a color change when a field is in focus. This video came from a question by David from Bellevue, Washington. You can find the complete video on my YouTube channel and on my website at the link shown. Live long and prosper, my friends.Quiz Q1. What property is used to display hints in the text boxes when the field is null or empty?
A. Text Property
B. Format Property
C. Hint Property
D. Placeholder Property
Q2. Which symbol is used in the format property to represent the normal characters if there is a value in the field?
A. #
B. $
C. @
D. %
Q3. What should be placed after the semicolon in the format property to display hints when the field is empty?
A. The default value without quotes
B. A custom error message
C. The hint text inside quotes
D. A blank space
Q4. What is the purpose of using conditional formatting in this tutorial?
A. To automatically fill in the text boxes
B. To change the color of text based on conditions
C. To add animations to the text boxes
D. To sort the entries alphabetically
Q5. What problem does the speaker mention about handling null values in conditional formatting?
A. Null cannot be directly used as a condition
B. Conditional formatting does not support text fields
C. Null values cause the application to crash
D. There is limited color choice for null values
Q6. What expression is used for conditional formatting to check if a field is null?
A. IsEmpty([FieldName])
B. IsNull([FieldName])
C. IsZero([FieldName])
D. IsBlank([FieldName])
Q7. What additional feature does the speaker add to indicate when a field has focus?
A. Bold text
B. Changing the border color
C. Field has focus condition with conditional formatting
D. Underlining the text
Q8. What visual cue does the speaker choose to show when a field has focus?
A. Red Text
B. Blue Background
C. Yellow Background with Black Text
D. Green Border
Q9. What does the speaker suggest as a more advanced way to provide hints using VBA code?
A. Changing the text field color
B. Autocompleting the input
C. Creating floating labels above the fields
D. Adding tooltips to all fields
Q10. Who proposed the initial solution using the format property?
A. David from Bellevue
B. Adam
C. Alex
D. Kevin Yip
Answers: 1-B; 2-C; 3-C; 4-B; 5-A; 6-B; 7-C; 8-C; 9-C; 10-C
DISCLAIMER: Quiz questions are AI generated. If you find any that are wrong, don't make sense, or aren't related to the video topic at hand, then please post a comment and let me know. Thanks.Summary Today's TechHelp tutorial from Access Learning Zone covers how to display helpful hints or instructions directly inside your text boxes until the user enters a value. This is a great way to make your database more user-friendly by guiding your users on what information needs to go in each field. For example, if the Last Name field is empty, a little gray instruction appears that reads "enter last name" until the user types something in.
One of the best parts of this solution is that it does not require any VBA programming. While this method goes a bit beyond the basic level, it falls in what I consider to be the expert skill range for Access users. Before trying this technique, you should already be familiar with how the Format property works in Access, along with the basics of conditional formatting. If you are not comfortable with these features yet, I recommend checking out my prerequisite lessons on those topics. You will find those videos on my website and YouTube channel, and I'll include links for you to reference. Once you have that foundation, come back here and follow along.
To give you some background, this tip comes from a question in the forums. David wanted to know how to show a field description inside a text box as a placeholder when there is no data. Several great suggestions came through, but the approach we will use today was recommended by Alex. We will use the Format property for text box controls. By using an at symbol followed by a semicolon and then your instruction text in quotes, you can display a custom prompt whenever the field is empty.
It's important to distinguish this from control tip text, which only appears when you move your mouse over a control. That method is useful for some cases, but if you want instructions visible all the time for empty fields, especially during data entry, the method we're discussing today is much more effective.
Let me walk you through the setup process. In my demonstration, I am using the TechHelp free template, available for download from my website. I simplified the example form to just a few fields to keep things focused. You can do this with as many fields as you like, and it is particularly handy for fields where the required input may not be common sense.
For each text box where you want to add an instruction, set the Format property to the following: the at sign, a semicolon, and then your prompt wrapped in quotes. For example, you might enter @;"enter first name". Repeat this for each field, customizing the prompt for the appropriate instruction, such as "enter last name", "enter email address", and so forth.
Once your Format property is set for each text box, save and reopen your form. Now, whenever you add a new record or encounter a null value, the instruction appears in the box as desired.
To make the prompt stand out as a hint rather than user data, we want to adjust the color so it appears gray. This is where conditional formatting comes into play. Unfortunately, conditional formatting does not natively provide an option for null or empty values. The solution is to use the "expression is" option, writing an expression like IsNull([FieldName]) where you substitute the actual field name. Set the formatting color to a suitable gray.
Apply this conditional formatting rule for each text box individually. There's no quick way to apply the formatting across multiple boxes at once, so you'll need to go into each one and update the expression to match the related field name. After saving and reopening the form, you should now see instruction text in gray for any empty field.
Another enhancement is to visually highlight which field currently has focus by adding an additional conditional formatting rule. For instance, you might make the background yellow and the text black when a user is actively typing in a field. Set this rule individually for each control, and make sure to move it to the top of the list so it takes priority when the condition is met.
Test your form by adding records and navigating through the fields. You will see the instructional text appear when appropriate, it will display in gray for empty fields, and an active field can have a distinct color when selected.
As a further step for those interested, I also like to use floating label hints that appear above the field when it is selected, mimicking the style of control tip text but as a visible on-screen label. This technique does require some VBA and is covered in detail in today's Extended Cut video available to Silver members and up.
To summarize, with just a little bit of careful configuration of the Format property and some creative use of conditional formatting, you can make your forms much more user-friendly by adding instructional hints right into your text boxes.
You can find a complete video tutorial with step-by-step instructions on everything discussed here on my website at the link below.
Live long and prosper, my friends.Topic List Displaying hints in text boxes using the Format property
Applying the at symbol and semicolon for custom hints
Adding custom instruction text for empty fields
Making hint text appear in gray with conditional formatting
Creating conditional formatting rules for null values
Using "expression is" with is null in conditional formatting
Setting up conditional formatting for each field individually
Applying different formatting when a field has focus
Changing background and text color based on focus
Ensuring hint instructions display correctly on new records |
